ShareThisEvery new bride should be lucky enough to have a honeymoon as long as Michelle Obama's. When Air Force One opened its doors at Stansted -- London's grimmest airport, usually filled with budget travelers in vinyl flip-flops -- America's first lady stood tall against the night sky in an acid-yellow dress. Seeing her, Britain's catty fashion press sheathed its claws, and began to quietly purr.
Never mind Angela Merkel, with a boxy blazer on her back and regulatory reform on her mind, or Gordon Brown, as nervous as a schoolboy having his first play date with the cool kid in class. All anyone wanted to talk about was Michelle Obama.
Where did she get the gorgeous beaded cardigan that caught the morning sunlight when she arrived with her husband -- what was his name again? -- at 10 Downing St.? (J. Crew, it turns out.) What exactly was the color of her pencil skirt?
Chartreuse, it was decided at the offices of Grazia, one of Britain's leading women's magazines, where such matters are debated with the same intensity the Bank of England gives to setting interest rates.
"We've been watching her all morning," said Grazia's style director, Paula Reed. "She's just so cool. She's incredibly bright and smart and stylish. It's bloody unfair."
It has been a long time, Reed noted, since the British have felt so warmly disposed to an American politician and his wife. The words "rock stars" followed the Obamas all day, as if they were John and Yoko looking for their next comfortable bed and not a couple with the future of the world's economy on their minds.
"The Obama stardust has penetrated even this august institution," a BBC reporter said as the couple's limousine, flown over from Washington and nicknamed "The Beast," entered the forecourt of Buckingham Palace. Inside, the first couple -- his Secret Service code name is Renegade, hers Renaissance, if the cute-meter wasn't already registering in the red zone -- might have been sharing a bout of nerves as they anticipated meeting the Queen and Prince Philip.
(erenzetti(at)globeandmail.com.)
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